Becoming like the Verbena Hanging Basket

Yesterday while I was at work I started reflecting on life.

Let me tell you what happened.

Before I tell you about my story let me paraphrase to you that Tyler is no longer working. After many prayers, thought, contemplation, and exercising extreme faith we both decided it was the best thing for him to do. In the mean time I am working almost full time until he finds another job. We hope and pray that this will be sooner than later, as I completely enjoy being a stay at home mom and Tyler really enjoys being the working dad.


So... on to my story.

While I was at work I noticed a certain hanging basket full of beautiful verbena blossoms. The blossoms were gorgeous. However, after closer examination I discovered that some of the more showy blossoms were almost TOO over bloomed. I decided that the plant needed to be cut back. I know that this shouldn't have impacted me so strongly, but I felt sad cutting all those beautiful, attractive blossoms off. I also knew that after I pruned it back it wouldn't be as attractive... and customers wouldn't realize indeed how special it was.


To distract myself from feeling sad I thought about how cutting off all the mature blossoms would allow the plant more freedom to grow. After they were cut off, the plant would be able to increase its efforts into regenerating new growth. At this point I had reassured myself that it was indeed necessary to cut off all the dead weight so that plant might continue to grow strong. I knew that it would grow back fuller and it would be healthier than if had continued to let it nurture all those mature blossoms.


Perhaps I was so strongly impressed by this experience because I felt that it strongly related to my life. Tyler and I have been blessed greatly in many ways during our marriage together. I'm not saying that things have always been easy, but they've never been too difficult either.

It would seem that every time we start to feel comfortable in a place in our life we are uprooted so to speak. It occurred to me that we weren't so different from that beautiful verbena hanging basket. Heavenly Father knows that if He "cuts our mature blossoms back" that we will grow back fuller, stronger, and in turn become a healthier and more beautiful plant.

Just like the hanging basket will have to endure a short period of ugliness, I know we will have to endure one too. However, this was slightly comforting to me. It allowed me to realize that if we are pruned back here and there we will become beautiful, just as Heavenly Father wants us to be.